A VIEW FROM CHICAGO

I grew up in south suburban Homewood in the late-1960s. Homewood was, as they used to say, "lily white." Everyone in my elementary school was white; a few Jewish kids were about as exotic as we got. There were rumors of black people in Harvey, to the north, but I never saw them.

My high school had one black student, who was two years ahead of me. His father was a doctor, and the family lived in swanky Olympia Fields. He was a star on the wrestling team and, because he was black, everyone treated him like a celebrity. I never knew how he felt about it.

Chicago was the great unknown, a place for field trips to the museum and Lincoln Park Zoo and the occasional Cubs or White Sox game. Having moved from Ohio, I looked in awe at the big city and craved more.

I didn't realize that many suburban families had already seen enough. They looked back at the city like parolees look at prison — safely away, but never quite far enough. One friend told me her family had moved from an idyllic sounding place called "South Shore." I didn't realize then that they had been part of the great outward migration known as "white flight," and that South Shore had turned from white to black in the blink of an eye.

By the time I moved to Chicago in the mid-1970s, white flight had been going strong for 20 years. And two decades of mass exodus had bred a sense of alienation between city and suburbs. It was us against them. The Urban Jungle versus the Village Green. Anything good for Chicago was bad for the suburbs, and vice versa.

But there is change in the air. In the first glimpse at Cook County's population at mid-decade. The Chicago Reporter discovered one startling statistic: White flight has slowed to a crawl. Chicago's white population loss is at its lowest level since the 1950s.

What's more, blacks, Latinos and Asians are fanning into the suburbs. Yet, while the color lines grow fuzzier, the old animosity lingers. Chicago still treats the suburbs like traitors or poor relations. And, while suburban Cook may look more like Chicago, its leaders still act like they live in DuPage.

Still, with a little inspiration, the leaders of Chicago and suburban Cook might actually work together to solve three nagging problems that plague the region:

The third airport. While Mayor Richard M. Daley fights the DuPagers over airport authorities, newly elected U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is making the Peotone airport one of his first priorities. Why? Because a big chunk of Jackson's 2nd Congressional District is now in the suburbs, and many of his constituents are black. They would benefit from the economic activity generated by a major airport in their neighborhood. Instead of fighting over O'Hare, Daley and suburban leaders should get cracking on a third airport that benefits the entire region.

School funding. This is always treated as a Chicago issue, but many suburban school districts are equally desperate for dollars. South suburban Harvey has the highest tax rate in the region, but because its property values are low, the schools can't keep pace. Wealthier municipalities are screaming for property tax relief. Hiking the state income tax and lessening the reliance on property taxes would benefit Chicago and suburban schools alike.

McDome. Daley no longer flatly rejects the idea of a domed stadium for the Bears, but he'd like the suburbs to assume some of the tax burden. Gov. Jim Edgar and GOP leaders respond with a knee-jerk no, but why not let fans throughout Cook County help keep the Bears where they belong?

Let's tally the score. Daley would get points for keeping the Bears in Chicago and bringing more state aid to the schools. Edgar and the Republicans would get an airport and provide real property tax relief.

Alas, it's a political year, and the experts say the politicians aren't likely to do anything, especially if it involves bold thinking and your tax dollars. That's probably true. But those same politicians better start paying attention to the people they think they represent. One day they may wake up to find that they don't live there anymore.

James Ylisela Jr. teaches urban reporting at Northwestern Medill School of Journalism. He's the consulting editor of The Chicago Reporter, an investigative monthly that focuses on race and poverty.

Illinois Issues February 1996 * 41